Virtual Patient Education From Real Cases

Misdiagnosis of neurological conditions is common in healthcare settings, sometimes with devastating consequences. Most diagnostic errors result from failures in bedside diagnostic reasoning. Dizziness is a symptom that is common, costly, and frequently associated with missed stroke. Too often healthcare providers have misconceptions about diagnostic approaches to dizziness. Current systems of medical education, residency training, and licensure requirements have proven insufficient to prevent harms from diagnostic error. Traditional lectures do not change physician behavior but active learning strategies with the use of simulation do. The investigators built and hope to expand a simulation-based curriculum to improve diagnosis of dizziness (SIDD) that will mirror real-world encounters and clinical practice. Using the tenets of deliberate practice with rapid, real-time feedback, the investigators hope to improve the approach to dizziness of healthcare providers and correct knowledge deficits that contribute to diagnostic errors. Investigators have chosen dizziness as the "model symptom" for this study. Future plans include expanding this approach to other symptoms that are also common, costly, and associated with a high misdiagnosis rate (e.g. abdominal pain, dyspnea, or chest pain).